


A Girl

by Brdazi



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-17 08:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brdazi/pseuds/Brdazi
Summary: Almost everyone has at least some of their soulmate's name appear on their wrist when they hit puberty, but not Jake Peralta. Of course he would be one of the unlucky ones that has nothing to go on, and he's sure that he's going to die alone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure what I'm doing or where this came from. I'll add tags when they come up and I might change the rating later, depending on where my brain takes this story. The first chapter is also a really short one, and I'll usually write longer chapters than this.

Most people have the name of their soulmate tattooed on the inside of their wrist, but not Jake Peralta, of course he fucking didn't. He always wore bracelets or a watch to cover his wrist. People who haven't met their soulmate tend to cover their wrists, so in a way, Jake fit right in there. It was usually only their first name, but some lucky people had a full name they could just look up and find the perfect person for them. For Jake, there wasn't even a first name he could bank on. Nope, because instead of a name on his wrist, he had the words, “A Girl.”

“Thanks universe,” Jake had mumbled to himself, “that only narrows it down to about half the world.”

Whenever people ask Jake what the name on his wrist is, he tries to brush it off, and most people don't push it because some people don't like talking about it. Some because they have such a common mane on their wrist, and others because the name is so unique, and Jake finds himself in a weird limbo between the two of them. 

The only person who has seen a bit of Jake's soulmate tattoo was Gina, and she had only seen the “gi.”

“It's not me, is it?” Gina asked.

“No, it's not,” Jake said, mostly convinced of his answer. “Why, do you have my name on your wrist?”

“No,” she said.

“Then why are you even asking?”

Gina had shrugged it off and moved on. Now that they work together, Gina backs him up whenever the subject comes up in the precinct. Sort of.

“Charles,” Gina called across the bullpen, “for the last time, Jake has never even shown  _ me _ his soulmate tattoo, and we've known each other forever. There's no way he's showing you.”

“I just want to help,” Charles said.

“Thanks buddy,” Jake said, “but you can't.”

“But you and Amy—” Charles started.

“It’s not Amy,” Gina said. For a moment everyone glanced up at Gina.

“If you’ve never seen his tattoo, how do you know?” Amy asked, now that she had unwillingly been brought into the conversation. 

“I’ve seen some of it,” Gina said.

“Gina,” Jake said, his tone harsher than he meant it to be. “Stop.” For a moment Gina looked at Jake, her eyes widened, but then she looked back down at her phone and didn’t say anything else. “Charles, give it a rest, man. I don’t think I’m ever going to find her, there’s just no way. I’ve given up and so should you.” 

“But Amy has your name on her wrist!” Charles exclaimed.

“No, I don’t,” Amy said. “It’s just a ‘J,’ there are a lot of names that start with ‘j.’ And anyway, it could be a last name or a first name or a nickname of some kind.”

“You just don’t want it to be me,” Jake said, teasingly, but his stomach clenched. He had liked Amy for a while, but he had never said anything to her. He didn’t want to be one of those guys who tried to force himself on a woman because he found out it was his name on her wrist. As Amy said, it wasn’t even really his name, just one initial. It could be any “J” name and it didn’t necessarily mean him, no matter how much he hoped it would. And the conundrum of the weird soulmate tattoo he had was not something he wanted Amy to have to deal with. 

“That’s not what— I didn’t mean—” Amy said, clearly trying to come up with a response that wouldn’t insult Jake.

“Ames, it’s fine,” Jake said, smiling at her. “It’s just a letter and a pretty common one, but I’m sure you’ll find him. Me, on the other hand, yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna die alone.” Jake shrugged and tried to make it look like it didn’t bother him, and if he didn’t know Gina as well as he did, he wouldn’t have noticed how even though she didn’t turn away from her phone, she glanced at him quickly before staring back at the screen. 

“No way,” Charles said and then started listing things about Jake, and while Jake appreciated Charles’ attempt at making him feel better, he didn’t want to hear it right now. His mind kept going back to how quickly Amy had dismissed him as a possible soulmate. A woman whom he respected and liked and probably had a huge crush on, didn’t even consider him a prospective partner. Jake tried to tell himself he didn’t care, that back in high school when the tattoo had appeared on his wrist, he had realized then that he was doomed to be alone. He rubbed at his wrist, but stopped when he noticed Amy frowning at him. He smirked back at her and tried to concentrate on his paperwork. Holt had made him redo it once already, and he didn’t feel like wasting more time on it, but he also didn’t realize how long it was taking him to fill out each page.

“Hey.”

Jake glanced at the clock on the corner of his computer screen and realized that technically he should’ve left half an hour ago. Gina was sitting on the corner of his desk, and he noticed that she had left her phone face down on her own. “Hey, girl,” Jake tried to sound nonchalant, but Gina squinted at him.

“Ugh, you know you can talk to me, do you want to talk about it?” Gina asked.

“Talk about what?”

“Your tattoo, dummy,” Gina said as if it were obvious. 

“No,” Jake said, and realized too late that he had said it too quickly. For a moment they sat in silence until Gina sighed.

“Fine,” Gina said as she walked away. “But I’m great at giving advice, I should be a therapist.”

Jake shook his head and pitied the imaginary people who might have therapy sessions with Gina. Another glance at the clock made Jake feel uneasy, he was always one to stay late to work on a case, but never to work on paperwork. The paperwork wasn’t even finished yet because he had gotten distracted, stuck in his own head. Without looking back at the work on his desk, Jake picked up his jacket and made a mental note to finish it first thing tomorrow morning, before Holt could yell at him for not taking all aspects of his job seriously. As he walked out, he was sure Gina watched him leave, but when he turned around in the elevator, Gina was facing Holt’s office with her phone in her hand. 

It was stupid to hope, he knew it was, and while it was true most of him had given up on his soulmate when he found that his tattoo said “A Girl,” a part of him couldn’t help but hope that one day she would find him. And another part of him, the smallest part he refused to think about most of the time, dreamed of it being Amy. Sure, they had annoyed each other at first, but after their first stakeout together, they realized that they were pretty in tune to one another and worked really well together. They had become slow friends, intolerance turned into begrudging acceptance turned into unwitting friendship. Jake wouldn’t give up her friendship for anything, and he certainly wasn’t going to risk it over the dumb possibility that she might like him as much as he liked her. 


	2. Chapter 2

It had been a few weeks since Boyle had last brought up soulmates, so Jake knew that it was going to happen sooner or later. It was usually annoying, but Jake knew that Charles only wanted him to be happy, as happy as Charles was with Genevieve. 

“Hey, Jake,” Charles called from his desk.

“What’s up?” Jake asked.

“Peralta,” Holt called over Charles’ voice, “Santiago, my office please.”

Amy and Jake exchanged glances before they walked into Holt’s office. Jake gestured for Amy to go in before him and then shut the door behind the both of them. 

“It wasn’t my fault,” Jake said automatically, “It was all Amy. Unless it’s a good thing, then it was all me.” Amy shot him a glare, but he could tell from her posture, she wasn’t annoyed by his antics anymore, she knew he was joking with her. 

“Peralta, Santiago,” Holt said. “I need you two to work a case together, but before either of you agree, I feel it is necessary to make you completely aware of the circumstances.”

“Okay,” Jake said slowly while Amy nodded enthusiastically. 

“I need you two to go undercover,” Holt started. 

“Done,” Jake interrupted, “I’ll do it.” For a moment Holt just stared at Jake and he felt himself sag down into his chair. 

“I need you two to go undercover as a couple,” Holt said. “There is a couple’s retreat where we think some of the couples may be smuggling drugs. You two need to pose as soulmates and find out who it is, and if possible, find out who they are working for. We will book you a room for a week, the two of you should be able to figure out this case in that time, and we will show you how to alter your soulmate tattoos to look like your undercover names.”

“No,” Jake said, and realized too late that he was holding his left wrist with his right hand, as if that might be able to cover the words even more than the leather cuff he was already wearing. 

Holt took a moment to look at Jake, considering something, but then he continued. “Santiago, I am aware that there is only one letter on your wrist, correct?” Amy nodded. “That should be easy to work with. Peralta—”

“No,” Jake said again. “I’m not showing anyone my tattoo.” Amy frowned at him, it was the same look she always gave him whenever the subject of soulmate tattoos came up, but she didn’t say anything. 

It was silent for a moment.

“Very well, then,” Holt said. “You will be instructed on how to cover your own tattoo and will be given a temporary cover up. It should hold up as long as no one observes it too closely, and as long as you don’t get it wet. Is that acceptable?”

After a moment of consideration, Jake nodded. Holt then launched into the more intricate details of the case, and Jake knew he was going to have to ask Amy about it later, because his mind had shut down. Amy seemed to be comfortable showing her soulmate tattoo, especially if it was covered or added onto with something else, but Jake hadn’t gone out in public without something on his wrist since before high school. Not even his mom knew what was on his wrist, and he wasn’t about to show some makeup artist or whatever just so they could cover it up and put something else on there. 

When Holt dismissed them, Jake stood up and mindlessly wandered back to his desk

“You weren’t listening, were you?” Amy asked. 

“No,” Jake said. “I’m sorry.”

“Come on,” Amy said.

“What?”

“Holt wants us to learn how to alter our soulmate tattoos now,” Amy said, and tugged on his arm to get him to follow her. He went begrudgingly, but didn’t resist Amy’s pull, it wasn’t her fault that this was happening. A case like this would usually be exciting for Jake, but the prospect of being alone with Amy for so long, and having to show his bare wrist to a bunch of strangers, really stressed him out. Any kind of undercover case was any detective’s dream, except maybe Hitchcock and Skully, and Jake was too busy overthinking his personal hang ups to even listen to the briefing that Holt had given them. 

In the elevator, Amy quickly went over what Holt had said to them, and this time Jake listened. Probably only one couple, possibly two. It seemed to start out with low-level drugs and has worked its way up to cocaine laced with something they still couldn’t identify, but it was usually killing people. They had to figure out if it was just a drug ring, or possibly something more. 

“Sounds too intricate to be some kind of assassin thing,” Jake said. “But that would be really cool. Or terrorists, we could have our very own Die Hard situation!”

“I don’t think it’s a ‘Die Hard situation,’ Jake,” Amy said, but Jake could see the smile she was trying not to let take over her face. 

Jake watched as Amy’s tattoo was altered first. They made something similar to a temporary tattoo, which they showed Amy how to properly apply, and Jake watched as her forehead crinkled with concentration. He couldn’t help but smile at her. Apparently his undercover name was going to be “Jack,” close enough to his real name that he would probably respond to it, and easy enough to add a few more letters to Amy’s wrist. 

“Your turn,” the technician turned to Jake, and he instantly gripped his wrist again.

“You can cover mine to show him how to do it,” Amy said, once again offering her wrist forward. The technician glanced between them before she shrugged and once again worked on Amy’s tattoo, this time covering it, but talking to Jake while she did it, and then showed how he would be placing a temporary tattoo entirely over his covered up tattoo. Amy’s undercover name was “Mary,” and Jake didn’t know how easily he’d be able to call Amy by another name. 

Jake spent the rest of the day in a daze. He was going undercover, it was an awesome assignment, and he should be excited about it, but the whole soulmate thing has completely thrown him. He was distracted for the rest of the day, and ended up being sent home by Holt to “gather himself for the assignment” much to his humiliation. 

When he got to his apartment, Jake automatically started to make himself dinner even though it was still a little too early for him to eat. Trying to clear his head a bit, Jake concentrated on whatever food he was making, and he was slowly starting to feel better about the upcoming assignment. It was really cool, and he got to do it with Amy, someone he trusted and knew they could work well together. He wondered if that was why Holt had picked the two of them for this particular job, he tried to consider anyone else at the precinct trying to do this, and he had to concede that the two of them probably made the most sense. 

A sharp knock on the door shocked Jake out of his thoughts and he put his cooked food to the side, hoping whoever was at the door wouldn’t take long so he wouldn’t have to reheat it. When Jake opened the door, he couldn’t tell if he was surprised to see Amy standing there, or if he had expected her to come. 

“Hey,” Jake said, and moved to the side so she could come in. She walked past him and looked around, her eyes landed on his plate of food and she raised her eyebrows. “I can make you some, I didn’t know you were coming over. Or you know, you can have that, I’ll make myself something else.” Jake rambled. 

“I’m fine,” Amy said, “you can eat while I talk. Wait, you can cook?”

“Well,” Jake said as he picked up the plate, “I can successfully not burn the place down.” 

“Right,” Amy said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“I can see that.”

“No, I mean,” Amy wrung her hands together and Jake noticed that there was still residual makeup and whatever else on her wrist from when they were being shown how to cover the tattoos. “I want to talk to you about the whole soulmate thing. I know it’s a subject that makes you uncomfortable, and I won’t push you on it, but if we’re going undercover together, we need to talk about some of it.” Amy talked really fast and avoided making eye contact, she was just as uncomfortable bringing this up as he was. 

“How do you walk around without covering yours?” Jake asked before he could stop himself. “I’ve had my wrist covered since I got it, and I try to not look at it myself.”

“You might want to consider talking to a therapist about that,” Amy said. Jake waited for her to say something else. “I don’t know why I never cover it, I just never saw the point. I guess I’m in a unique situation where nobody can say for certain that they’re my soulmate. On the flip side, I guess I’ll never know for certain. All I have to go on is that a part of their name probably starts with a ‘J.’”

“I’m kind of in a similar situation,” Jake said, and this time it was his turn to avoid eye contact, but Amy was right, if they wanted to be convincing, if they wanted to solve the case, they were going to have to be a little more transparent with each other. “I’ll never be able to tell for certain if someone is my soulmate.”

“Is that why you’ve just given up on it?” Amy asked. Jake looked at her for a moment. “Charles talked to me about it a bit, mostly because he was trying to convince me that we’re soulmates just because of my tattoo, and I told him he was being ridiculous.” 

Jake felt a sharp pang in his heart, but ignored it. “There are enough ‘Jake’s’ in the world that with my tattoo, she would have to have my full name on her wrist for us to be certain that it’s me,” he said and then shrugged. “It’s just not a big deal to me anymore. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m going to die alone and work is all I have.”

“That’s not true,” Amy whispered. 

Jake smiled at her, but he knew she could see right through him. “Anyway, let’s not talk about that, let’s just talk about the actual case and how that’s going to affect this.”

“Okay,” Amy said and straightened her back, she looked directly at him, and he knew that look, that was her “I’m going to figure this out even if it kills me” look. “I’m going to tell you something that I haven’t told anyone about my tattoo, but only if you promise to tell me at least something about yours, deal?”

Intrigued, Jake weighed the pros and cons in his head before he nodded. “Fine,” he said, mentally reserving the right to lie to her, even if he knew he probably wouldn’t.

“You know how less than one percent of the population have tattoos that change?” Amy asked and Jake nodded. “Some people speculate that it means you have multiple possible soulmates, but I don’t think that’s the case with mine. I always have the ‘J,’ but sometimes other letters are added. I’ve tried to keep track of them and where they are on my wrist, but I never seem to be able to make a full name out of it.”

“Wait,” Jake said, “your tattoo actually changes? But you don’t cover your wrist, how did nobody notice it?”

“Because in a way, I do cover it,” Amy said and pulled out a tissue and began to rub at her wrist. Soon, Jake was able to see the “J” he knew was there, but there was now a “Ja” on her wrist. “If another letter is there, I use makeup to cover it and just leave the ‘J’ showing. Sometimes the ‘a’ is in a different spot, and sometimes there’s a ‘P’ there, but that’s usually it.”

“Still more to go on than me,” Jake muttered. “That’s really cool though.” Jake didn’t realize that he had reached over and grabbed Amy’s arm, rubbing his fingertips over the letters, as if to make sure they weren’t fake. He suddenly realized what he was doing and dropped her arm. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” 

“It’s okay,” Amy said. “We’re probably going to have to cross some physical boundaries to do this right anyway.”

“‘Cross some physical boundaries to do this right,’ title of your sex tape,” Jake said. Amy rolled her eyes at him, but he saw the slight smile at the corner of her lips.

“Your turn,” Amy said. 

“I’m not showing you—”

“I didn’t say you had to. Just tell me something, tell the truth.”

Jake took a deep breath and steeled himself to tell her something he hadn’t told anybody. “I don’t have a name on my wrist,” Jake said. “It’s not blank, like people who might not have soulmates, but it’s also not a name.”

“How is that possible?” Amy asked, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a case where a soulmate tattoo wasn’t a name.”

“There have only been two recorded instances,” Jake said. “I looked it up.” Amy nodded, as if it were obvious that he would do that, which he guessed it kind of was. “The people involved didn’t say much about it, so I don’t have much to go on either.” 

“Gina said she had seen part of it,” Amy said, “but she wouldn’t tell any of us what she had seen.”

Jake smiled, Gina could be really difficult at times, but she was always fiercely loyal. “Yeah, she saw some of it,” Jake said, “but not the whole thing. For a while I was mad at her for even seeing a just a small bit of it and she quickly realized it was a sensitive subject for me. She didn’t really bring it up after that.”

“So,” Amy said, looking like she was about to say something she knew she would regret. “You don’t talk about your emotions because of your tattoo, or you didn’t talk about them before that?”

Jake fidgeted a little. “Before that.”

“I’m sorry,” Amy said. “I shouldn’t have said that, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jake said. “You’re right, for us to do this, to be convincing, we need to talk about some things.”

“Let’s just talk about the case,” Amy said.

“Works for me.”

“I knew it would.”

 

In a much shorter time than Jake thought, he and Amy were walking into a hotel, checking in as Jack and Mary. Jake immediately got into character, he loved doing this kind of thing, and Amy seemed content to follow his lead. Playing the part of the doting husband was somehow easy for Jake, he figured he would just do the opposite of everything his father had done and he’d be golden. 

“Have a lovely stay,” the woman at the counter said as she handed over their key cards. Jake smiled at her and held out his hand to Amy, who hesitated for only a moment before she took it. 

“Thank you,” Jake responded and pulled Amy after him towards the elevator. “Smooth.” He muttered to her while they waited for the elevator doors to open. 

“I panicked,” Amy mumbled back.

“How? You knew we were going to hold hands, that’s a thing couples do, Amy.” 

“I know,” Amy said and squeezed Jake’s hand just hard enough that it was a little painful. The doors opened, and they stepped in, dragging their suitcases behind them. They didn’t actually have much clothing in their suitcases. There were told to share one suitcase so they would have their own clothes, while the other suitcase was dedicated to surveillance equipment. Jake knew he would probably only take up about a quarter of the suitcase, and was a little surprised when he saw that Amy did as well, and they were both able to pack a few more items. 

“Don’t pack a swimsuit,” Jake said.

“But what if there’s some kind of pool activity? We won’t be prepared,” Amy said.

“Exactly,” Jake said and held up his wrist, “can’t get them wet, remember?”

“Oh,” Amy said, “you’re right.” 

Amy ended up packing a few books, Jake wanted to bring movies, but knew they probably wouldn’t have time, and even if they did, he wasn’t sure Amy would appreciate it. 

“Okay,” Amy said when they entered the elevator. No one else had gotten in with them, and Amy immediately dropped Jake’s hand. “First we need to establish a suspect and…”

“No,” Jake said. “First we need to get everything set up.” The elevator dinged, and they walked out into the hallway. It wasn’t a long walk to their room, and Jake used his key card to enter the room and then stopped dead. “There’s one bed.”

“Yes,” Amy said and pushed past him. “Holt said that if another one of the guests on the couple’s retreat somehow noticed, it would be suspicious.” 

“Right,” Jake said. He looked around the room and silently debated with himself whether he would rather sleep on the floor or on the hard-looking chair in the corner. With a sigh, he decided the floor would be better for his back, and he hoped that the cleaning staff were thorough. “So, the floor is my new best friend.” 

Amy was already pulling out her clothes and putting them in the drawers. What was the point in that, Jake thought, they were only going to have to put them back in the suitcase later. Amy paused in the middle of transferring one of her perfectly folded shirts and stared at him. 

“What do you mean?”

Gesturing at the one bed in the room, Jake said, “You can take the bed, I’ll sleep on the floor. Charles says it’s better for your back, so I guess I’ll find out if it is one way or another.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Amy said. “We can be adults about this. You take one side of the bed, I’ll take the other, and we just stick to our sides.” 

“Uh,” Jake started eloquently. He felt his heart rate pick up a little. Sleeping on the floor next to Amy was something he thought he could handle, but sleeping in the same bed was the kind of stress he was sure would kill him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Johnny and Dora would've been obvious under cover names, but something about it didn't feel right to me.


End file.
